Читаем A good German полностью

“And then-do you know what?” Gunther said.

Bernie raised his head, surprised, something outside the script.

“What?” the lawyer said uncertainly.

“You want to know what it was like? Those days? The waitress came over. ‘Are you paying for both?’ she said. ‘You ordered two coffees.’” He stopped. “So I paid.” The end of the column, his final point.

“Thank you, Herr Behn,” the lawyer said again.

The defense attorney rose. “A question. Herr Behn, were you a member of the National Socialist Party? ”

“Yes.”

“Let it be entered that the witness is an admitted fascist.”

“All policemen were required to join the party,” the prosecutor said. “This is irrelevant.”

“I suggest that this testimony is biased,” the defense attorney said. “A Nazi official. Who enforced the criminal laws of the fascist regime. Who testifies for personal reasons.”

“This is absurd,” the prosecutor said. “The testimony is the truth. Ask her.” He pointed to Renate. Now both lawyers were standing, what formal procedures there had been slipping away in a crossfire that darted from lawyer to witness to accused. “Were you at the Cafe Heil? Did you report Marthe Behn? Did you identify her? Answer.”

“Yes,” Renate said.

“Not a stranger. A woman you knew,” the prosecutor said, his voice rising.

“I had to.” She looked down. “You don’t understand. I needed one more that week. The quota. There were not so many left then. I needed one more.”

Jake felt his stomach move. A number to fill the truck.

“To save yourself.”

“Not for myself,” she said, shaking her head. “Not for myself.”

“Fraulein Naumann,” the defense said, formal again. “Please tell the court who was also being held in custody in Grosse Hamburger Strasse.”

“My mother.”

“Under what conditions?”

“She was kept there so that I would come back in the evening, when my work was finished,” she said, resigned now, aware that it wouldn’t matter. But she had lifted her head and was looking at Jake, the way a public speaker pinpoints a face in an audience, talking only to him, a private explanation, the interview they probably would never have. “They knew I wouldn’t leave her. We were taken together. First to work at Siemenstadt. Slaves. Then, when the deportations started, they told me they would keep her name off the list if I worked for them. So many every week. I couldn’t send her east.”

“So you sent other Jews,” the prosecutor said.

“But then there were not so many left,” she said, still to Jake.

“To-what did you call them? — labor camps.”

“Yes, labor camps. But she was an old woman. I knew the conditions were hard. To survive that-”

“But that’s not all you did, is it?” the prosecutor said, pressing now. “Your superior”-he glanced at a paper-“Hans Becker. We have testimony that you were intimate with him. Were you intimate with him?”

“Yes,” she said, her eyes on Jake. “That too.”

“And did he keep your mother off the list? For your good efforts?”

“At first. Then he sent her to Theresienstadt. He said it was easier there.” She paused. “He ran out of names.”

“Tell the court what happened to her there,” the defense said.

“She died.”

“But you continued your work after that,” the prosecutor said. “You still came back every night, didn’t you?”

“By then, where could I go? The Jews knew about me-I couldn’t hide with them. There was no one.”

“Except Hans Becker. You continued your relations with him.”

“Yes.”

“Even after he deported your mother.”

“Yes.”

“And you still say you were protecting her?”

“Does it matter to you what I say?” she said wearily.

“When it’s the truth, yes.”

“The truth? The truth is that he forced me. Over and over. He liked that. I kept my mother alive. I kept myself alive. I did what I had to do. I thought, there’s nothing worse than this, but it will end, the Russians will come. Not much longer. Then you came and hunted me down like a dog. Becker’s girlfriend, they called me. Girlfriend, when he did that to me. What is my crime? That I’m still alive?”

“Fraulein, that’s not the crime here.”

“No, the punishment,” she said to Jake. “Still alive.”

“Yes,” Gunther said unexpectedly from the witness chair, but not looking anywhere, so that no one was sure what he meant.

The Russian prosecutor cleared his throat. “I’m sure we’re all enlightened to hear that the Nazis are to blame for everything, Fraulein. A pity, perhaps, that you did their work so well.”

“I did what I had to do,” she said, still staring, until finally Jake had to look away. What did she expect him to say? I forgive you?

“Are you finished with the witness?” the judge said, restless.

“One more question,” the defense said. “Herr Behn, you’re a large man. Strong. You did not struggle with the men in the cafe?”

“With Gestapo? No.”

“No, you saved yourself.” A pointed look at Renate. “Or, to be exact, your wife saved you. I believe that’s what you said.”

“Yes, she saved me. It was too late for her, once they knew.”

“And after this you remained on the police force?”

“Yes.”

“Enforcing the laws of the government that had arrested your wife.”

“The racial laws were not our responsibility.”